Creston wrote on Jun 15, 2011, 14:25:How would that be worth it? How would publishers going exclusive EVER lead to a better gaming market?

I feel like I have already written a lot about why I feel that way. Valve has too much power over other developers and publishers and they do use this power. I want them to have less power, and I think one developer having that much power is bad for gaming.

Obviously priorities differ.

Steam is nowhere near as powerful as EA overall though. Even in the context of the PC industry alone EA is probably still worth more money and has a lot of flex. Steam's control isn't really anti-competitive either, they aren't a structured monopoly like say Microsoft from the 90's. Steam has plenty of active competition, the trouble really is that Steam has taken a long term approach to the PC industry while EA and others continually act with their next financial quarter in mind.

In any case as Creston pointed out, you should be wanting things good for yourself and other consumers. These companies can worry about themselves. I'm not even defending Steam or something, I could care less if Steam is ultimately profitable, successful or what have you so long as my consumer experience is improved. If Steamworks is despicable then EAs move here is loathsome in the extreme and goes against the kind of business that drives a healthy market.

The competition between publishers won't go away.

With so much consolidation in the industry over the past ten years this isn't a statement I would necessarily bet on.